Short-Lived Shows: Foofur

The creation of Foofur, a Saturday morning cartoon that ran on NBC for two seasons starting in 1986, is typically credited to Freddy Monnickendam, the man who helped bring The Smurfs to American television and who later created The Snorks. However, Don Markstein of Toonopedia writes that the cartoon is more precisely attributed to Phil Mendez, who created Kissyfur one year earlier. Whoever created it, Foofur was a staple of my Saturday mornings, and I was glad to find a few episodes on YouTube.

Foofur was a blue hound who lived in the mansion of his late master, which he inherited after she passed away. He shared the home with some dogs he rescued from the pound, along with his little nephew (nephews being an essential part of any cartoon family) and a cat that knew karate. A lady by the name of Miss Escrow (a joke I didn't understand when I was younger) would constantly try to sell the mansion, so it was up to Foofur and his pals to thwart her attempts every week, and to sneak out of the mansion whenever she came around.

Foofur himself was voiced by Frank Welker, a legendary voice actor who played Fred on Scooby-Doo and is essentially the "go to" guy for animal voices (he also does Santa's Little Helper on The Simpsons). The show was typical Saturday morning fare, and my fond memories of it probably stem more from nostalgia than anything especially remarkable about the show itself. Still, the show wasn't without its charm, and it had a hip edge to it that made it stand out just a little from the more sugary animal 'toons of the time.

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I vaguely remember this show (and I'm mildly excited to know its not something I hallucinated), but man - the ALF cartoon. I periodically still get the doo wop theme song from Alf's show in my head...you know, where they actually called him Gordon Shumway??? Come to think of it, I ought to use that as an internet alias...

Good god, I remember this. Not one of my favorites...for pure obscure fun, you'd have to go with the ALF cartoon, which was set on Melmac and featured episodes such as the one where they went to a farm and raised giant slugs they milked for mayonaise.

I also have a weird fondness for GALAXY HIGH and WILDFIRE on CBS, but any of y'all recall TURBO TEEN, about a teen who actually turned into a car? Wow, that was horrible.